Before printing was expensive, so you usually had some established company that could be liable for libel. Now the hosters are exempt (not necessarily the wron

Before printing was expensive, so you usually had some established company that could be liable for libel. Now the hosters are exempt (not necessarily the wrong choice), and have millions of publishing members posting stuff rapidly that you could never address with libel lawsuits. Before people would maybe be talking and rumor slandering all over the place in person instead, but the literate-targeting part of media was operating under some ground rules for debate of at minimum no malicious libel.